“Okay,” I said. “She told me her name was Phoebe Campbell. She’s a tall brunette with green eyes. Good looking with a face that cries out to be believed. She works as a teller at the Upper Canadian Bank. I don’t know which branch.” Savas tugged on his earlobe, and motioned Bedrosian out the door to check on it. While we were waiting, Savas continued reading a report about something important. Bedrosian was back in fifteen minutes, shaking his head.
“There’s no one of that name or description working at the Upper, as far as we can find out at this hour. I’ll try your description around the branches tomorrow. But, Sergeant, I don’t know what we’d book her on if we found her. We didn’t find anything on Mr. Cooperman, and it wouldn’t take much to get out from under what we’re holding.” Kyle looked at Savas and so did I. He was working his upper lip tightly over his teeth like he had a few strands of steak lodged between a couple of teeth.
“You know, Mr. Cooperman, in a way you’re lucky your story is so crazy. We hear all kinds in a week, but you win the prize. If any of this stuff had checked out, I’d nail you to the wall with a B and E in a minute, but it stinks to high heaven, and I’ve been around long enough to know that all the stink doesn’t come from you. Think about it. Why would anyone want to set you up like that?”
“I’m beginning to think of a few reasons. But I’ve got a good imagination.”
“I don’t want a whodunit, just facts. When you’ve coughed up something solid like a fact, I want to know about it. You read me?”
“Loud and clear.” I wasn’t going to tell him how popular I’d made myself with Harrow, or mention that I suspected a chill wind blowing my way from City Hall. If he was a good cop, and I suspected that Savas was a good cop, he’d hear about this in the morning. Savas warned me about what happens to naughty private investigators when they come up in the world and become common burglars. He told me that I’d better blow my nose somewhere else from now on, and not to leave town. And, just when I’d been prepared to curl up in the holding tank overnight, I found myself being driven back to my car by Bill Kyle, who was going off duty anyway. I couldn’t imagine something like that happening in a big city. There have to be a few advantages to living in a place like this. It was about time I found out about one of them.
“You got a tip about me from a woman over the phone?” I asked Kyle.
“It was a phone call. Could have been a woman; I didn’t take it. Check the dispatcher. It’ll be on his sheet.”
“What did you hear, then? What was I supposed to be doing: stealing the silver, popping the safe, what?”
“The way I heard it, you were a suspicious character about to plant something suspicious in the top bureau drawer of the master bedroom.”
“And you believed that?”
“What do you mean? I call that hitting it close.”
When I finally crawled behind the wheel of the Olds, I could feel most of me shouting, “Take me home. Enough’s enough!” and a look at my watch only confirmed that as good advice. But something in the back of my head, which I was seriously thinking of donating to science, told me to drive by the office just to see that everything was in ship-shape shape.
The streets were nearly deserted, except around the Murray Hotel on St. Andrew. The stoplights always take twice as long this side of midnight. While I was stopped at one of them, I noticed for the first time that the pavement was wet. It had rained while I was trading yarns with the cops. My mother would have said, “Good, if you’re a farmer.” I parked out in front of my place, and used my last strength to pull myself up the twenty-eight steps. A three-bulb fixture hung at the top of the stairs. Tonight it wasn’t doing so well; two of the bulbs had blown. But there was enough light for me to see that the front door of my office stood open, and that there was a foot sticking out of it. Again I felt that tearing at my stomach I thought I’d left in Dr. Zekerman’s office. I had to force my feet to obey. I took out my handkerchief, and turned on the lights. Frank Bushmill lay on his side, with one hand thrust forward as though he had been hit by lightning while in the act of waving goodbye. I heard my knees snap with middle age as I knelt at his side. By now I could see that he was breathing. For a second I felt a flash of rage run around inside my collar. The bloody drunk had passed out once too often. But then I saw a wine-coloured mark at the base of his skull. He had been helped to oblivion by more than a bottle tonight. I went across the hall and got a towel from the bathroom and wet it. Frank looked just as out of it when I got back. I laid the towel over his forehead and called his name loudly. I thought I saw an eyelid flutter, but not much. I loosened his collar, and tried biting on one of his finger nails. He was really out. I went around behind my desk and found the phone book and called the ambulance.
Looking down at my desk blotter, I saw for the first time that the place had been gone over by someone who knew what he was looking for. I knew that I’d left the three pages of notes that Dr. Zekerman sent me sitting belly up on my green desk blotter. I felt my breast pocket. Miraculously, the thief had not also been there. I held at least half a head on my shoulders. Soon I could see that Frank was making a few low sounds, his mouth moved a little like a beached whale-not that I’ve seen one-and a little more colour was beginning to be seen in his face. I now remembered that I should have looked at his eyes. That’s the way they do it in the movies. You can tell all sorts of things just by lifting an eyelid. By now, however, I could hear the sound of the siren coming up James Street. Frank would be beyond my tender loving care in less than three minutes.
To kill the time, I dialled the Regional Police. I got a tired desk man and asked to be put through to Sergeant Savas.
“Yeah,” Savas said, when I got him.
“It’s Cooperman,” I said.
“You didn’t go home like a nice boy, did you?”
“No. I came back to my office. I thought you’d sleep better if I told you what I found when I got here.”
“Try me.”
“Somebody’s been through my place. I’ve been robbed. And the guy that rents the office next to mine has a nasty bump on his head that he still can’t feel yet. The ambulance is just parking outside. I don’t think he’ll be able to tell us anything for a couple of hours. Just thought I’d let you know.”
“Kinda makes sense now, doesn’t it?”
“If that’s sense.”
“Well, I’ll come over and have a look. In the meantime …”
“I know, don’t touch anything.”
SIXTEEN
At three o’clock in the morning, Sergeant Savas and I started looking for coffee. St. Andrew Street was tight as a drum, and all of the usual places that either of us could think of were sensibly shut down and their operators in bed. Savas thought I was trying to be funny when I offered him a dried apricot. I always thought it would be a good idea to keep a bottle in the bottom drawer of my desk or in the filing cabinet, but with Frank Bushmill for a neighbour, and me for a tenant, it wasn’t necessary.
The Sergeant had arrived a few minutes after they’d carted Frank off to the hospital. In the movies and on television, a bump on the head is a temporary inconvenience. It doesn’t hold the hero up for long, and the rest of the cast bounce back just as quickly. Savas looked around my place, not taking things very seriously, since I hadn’t reported the loss of the Kohinoor diamond, or the Crown Jewels. He had the edges of the puzzle that was bugging me stuck in his teeth, like bits of his dinner, and he wanted me to tell him what was going on. He didn’t say that in so many words, but all those scowls couldn’t have been indigestion.